


memory lane

by Ryah_Ignis



Category: Supernatural
Genre: 14x09: Nihilism, Coda, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-01-18
Updated: 2019-01-18
Packaged: 2019-10-12 09:46:24
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,596
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/17465177
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ryah_Ignis/pseuds/Ryah_Ignis
Summary: "Cas watches Dean slam his fist into the beat-up back door to a fast food restaurant next to a lake, his anger and pain finally pouring out.  Sam wants to get moving, but Dean just stands there and prays.And suddenly, Cas knows.  We needed you back had never really been we at all."14x09 Coda.  Cas sees some of Dean's worst memories and realizes a few things.





	memory lane

He’s standing in front of a burning house.

Cas blinks, the heat blurring his vision for a moment before the picture clears.  There’s a man yelling, but his voice is garbled, hoarse. 

 _Dean._ This is his memory; he’s got to be here somewhere.

Cas turns to find a boy a few yards away.  He can see the fire reflected in the boy’s eyes, and the bundle in his arms lets out a wail.  All the air is sucked from Cas’s lungs, and it has nothing to do with the smoke clouding the air.

“Dean,” he says softly.

The boy regards him silently, jaw clenched in a way that Cas can recognize even on a four-year-old.  The slight warble of his lower lip, though, betrays just how terrified he is.  Cas holds up one hand, placating.  The other, he places carefully on the baby’s forehead.  The wails stop.  The little boy opens his mouth, a question in his eyes—

* * *

A rusted-out junkyard.  The sun beats down; he can feel it reflected from the gravel beneath his feet.

Cas remembers this place, remembers fondly the old man that owned it.  He picks a direction and walks, knowing that he’ll come across Dean eventually.

This Dean is easier to spot.  He has a wrench in his hands and pain in his features and he’s striking the hood of the Impala with all of his might.  Just like the little boy, he’s silent.

He’s not here, the real Dean.  Cas aims his Grace at the ruined hood of the car and pushes.  By the time he’s stepping into the next memory, the crumpled metal is smooth again.

* * *

Moonlight barely peeks through the thick clouds above.  It looks and feels like a storm, but something tells Cas it won’t rain.  He only has to take two steps on to the street to realize what he’s seeing.

A younger Sam—before his eyes were quite so heavy, his soul quite so damaged—staggers forward.  Dean lunges, catches him, but it’s not enough.  Blood soaks through the cracks between his fingers.

All Cas can do is let the blood flow faster and end the wait.

* * *

He’s seen this before.

Behind him, his invisible wings twitch.  They remember the damage this place caused, even though this version is only a memory.  Cas sucks in a breath and watches a ruined soul work.

Dean moves mechanically, glancing over his shoulder at the darker patch of shadow that called itself Alastair for approval.  Every so often he slips up, and the shadow strikes. 

He knows how this story ends.  Cas strides out of the shadows and claps a hand on Dean’s shoulder.

“You have work to do, Dean.”

* * *

This, too, is an old memory.  A well-worn record, a banged-up mixtape in a breast pocket.  Cas can’t stop the yawning chasm from opening in the middle of Stull Cemetery any more than he can stop the two young men and the archangels inside them from plunging into the darkness.

What he can do is this.

He comes up behind Dean, slumped forward on his knees with blood dripping sluggishly from his nose.  Cas’s breath catches in his throat when he turns to face him.

He leans forward, presses a few fingers to Dean’s forehead.  The blood and bruises fade away, but the hurt doesn’t.

* * *

He’s never liked the smell of hospitals—human suffering with a hint of disinfectant—and even in a memory it makes his nose scrunch.  Cas heads off down the hall anyway, turns into the ICU.

He hadn’t been present for this memory, and he doesn’t like what he sees.  Bobby Singer looks impossibly smaller without his baseball cap, dressed in a papery hospital gown.  All Cas can do is cease the angry wail of the machine when Bobby’s heartbeat slows and hope it’s enough to move on to the next memory.

* * *

Something’s different about this memory.

Sam—dark circles stamped beneath his eyes, a sheen of sweat on his forehead, an ache to his bones that Cas can practically feel—calls something over his shoulder as he walks into a motel room.

Dean stays by the trunk of the Impala, so Cas does, too.  As soon as Sam is out of sight, he pops it open and reaches inside.  Beneath the fake top, beneath the array of bullets is a trench coat.

Cas’s brow furrows.  How could this possibly be one of Dean’s most traumatic memories?

“Cas,” Dean says.

For a moment, Cas can’t breathe. He’s found him. “Dean, we don’t have much time—”

But Dean doesn’t give any indication that he’s heard.  He tightens his grip on the trench coat. “I know it’s a long shot, but—I don’t know where angels go where they die.  If they go anywhere, really.  I just hope that you’re at peace, wherever you are.  Everything you did—Sam said it was unforgiveable once, but I—I think I forgave you the moment that portal opened.  So just—please rest.”

Cas’s eyes sting, and the unfamiliar feeling distracts him long enough to almost miss Dean pressing the trench coat to his face.

Cas waves a hand, and the coat regains a little of its old scent—Jimmy Novak’s cologne, cheap fabric, a hint of coming rain.  Dean pulls the coat away, a little less troubled.

* * *

Even for an angel, staring at his own face is strange.  Staring at his own _dead_ face is stranger still. 

Funny.  He’d always thought of his human life as puny, but the way Dean cradles his face makes it seem like he’s the whole world.  Cas knows that his eyes will open soon, but it doesn’t make the pain as any less as he watches Dean shatter.

“Fix him,” Dean says, voice cracked.

Cas reaches out with his Grace and nudges Gadreel awake.

* * *

Some things are clearer now.

Cas watches Dean fall to his knees in the mud beside what had once been Jimmy Novak’s body, his world crashing down around his ears.  Sam runs back into the house where Cas knows he’ll find Jack, but Dean stays where he is.

Cas watches Dean tear a curtain down from the wall beside Cas’s own corpse, his face collapsing into a pained grimace.  Sam says something from the other room, but Dean doesn’t move a muscle.

Cas watches Dean slam his fist into the beat-up back door to a fast food restaurant next to a lake, his anger and pain finally pouring out.  Sam wants to get moving, but Dean just stands there and prays.

And suddenly, Cas knows.  _We needed you back_ had never really been _we_ at all.

* * *

“Michael was lying to you.”

There was a time in Cas’s life where that would have been the necessary conversation.  A time where he truly believed that all he’s been for Dean since the moment he lifted him from Hell was another burden.  Not anymore.

“I know he was.”

Dean raises his eyebrows. “Then why do you have that look on your face?”

Without being asked, Cas takes a step into Dean’s room and closes the door behind him.  Dean crosses his arms and eyes him suspiciously.

“What look?”

Dean mimics, pulling his eyebrows close together and tilting his head a bit to the right. “That one.  It’s your _we’ve got to talk_ face.”

He’s not wrong.  Cas straightens his head and tries to relax his eyebrows.  He must fail, because the corner of Dean’s mouth twitches.

“Why do you always say we?”

Dean just looks at him. “What?”

“When I was dead—” Is he imagining things, or does Dean flinch? “—you told me that Jack resurrected me because _we_ needed me back.”

Dean sits down on the edge of the bed, his hands laced together and his back bowed.  Cas doesn’t walk any further into the room, even though all he wants to do is sit beside him.

“Why did you say all of you?”

The turned question takes Cas by surprise.  Sensing the invitation, he sits down beside Dean on the bed, unintentionally mirroring his pose.

“What?”

“You said you, first.  Then all of you.”

Another death.  Cas supposes that the relative brevity of that particular disaster had kept it out of Dean’s top worst memories.

“I didn’t want to burden you with that knowledge.  Not when I thought I was going to—well.”

Silence.  Cas studies the way the lamp behind them casts their shadows together on the immaculate floor.  Dean must have run the vacuum again, like he always does when he’s trying to distract himself.

“I’ve only ever told one person that I loved them,” Dean says, words catching on each other. “Mom, before the fire.  And every night, for a long time afterwards.”

Cas opens his mouth. “Dean—”

“All of the _I love yous_ in the world didn’t make her come back,” Dean continues, like he hasn’t even heard. “But you—you kept coming back.  And I think part of me thought that if I told you, you’d go away too.”

His voice breaks.  Cas wants to kiss the worried frown off his face, but he knows all too well that it’s a step toward happy that he can’t risk.  He can’t let this conversation continue.

“I just wanted you to know that I knew he was lying,” he says abruptly. “Michael, I mean.  And I think Sam and Jack do, too.”

There’s a flash of hurt in Dean’s eyes when he stands up and heads for the door, but Cas can’t risk it.

Because this time, an _I love you_ really would take him away.

**Author's Note:**

> Yes, Cas smells like rain. I don't make the rules.


End file.
